Coincidences
by wereblonde
Summary: RenRuki It was a stupid coincidence that made him realize she was a girl, and another stupid coincidence that led them to this place, here, where his childhood found something a little more complicated than a friend in Rukia.


**RENRUKI HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 07 [FIC]**  
**Title:** Coincidences Author: wereblonde Pairing/characters used: Renji/Rukia. Duh!  
**Warnings:** PG-13? Cussing, because, you know, Renji and all. And a bit of grudging fluffiness.  
**Recipient:** salzraender  
**Word Count:** 3,096  
**Disclaimer:** Obviously, Bleach is not mine. Also, my muse was spotty on this one (hence the lateness, SORRY ABOUT THAT) and I wrote it in chunks. I also have not read it through all the way once. And it was unbeta'd. That said, I still hope it's fun for you. D:  
**Author's Note:** I was running with the word 'blanket' and the memory of a fic from another fandom that I absolutely adore that has the same kind of awkward situation. Also, I'm a girl, but I find myself understanding the Renji side of the relationship A LOT MORE, so I like to write from his general POV. And come on. He's just more fun. I love feedback! And let me know if you find any mistakes or continuity errors, because... well, didn't read it.

Renji figures that it happened sometime before noon but after sunrise on a crisp autumn morning. He never really stops to wonder how or why there are seasons in Rukongai; he just knows that it's nothing to do with geography and everything to do with being in the most derelict part of the spirit town. Anyway, the air was cool and the leaves were brown and everything was sharp, distinct in a way that only sharp autumn air makes things, and that's when he finally noticed that Rukia was a girl.

It was a very stupid coincidence, actually. Everyone was getting restless and shifty on account of the clear day and the fact that they were mostly kids, and kids tend to get restless and shifty, so he and Rukia went out to find someone to rip off for some candy or even just shits and giggles. Rukia always had more courage than all of them combined, although Renji never wanted to admit it and frequently stepped out of his own comfort boundaries to show her up. There were times, though, when she got carried away. This was one of those times.

He was a very large man, but Renji could tell by looking at him that he was also very spry. Rukia had a habit of relying heavily on her agility to get her out of sticky situations, but after several minutes of close observation of the target, Renji knew that he would have no trouble catching the wiggly girl.

"Rukia--" He warned.

"I'm going for it," She said, haughty and confident that she was leader of the pack and could accomplish anything she put her mind to. He paused for a moment to admire her confidence and that's when she went for it.

"Hey!" The brute said when Rukia snatched one of many pouches that was hanging from his expansive waist. He twisted as she shot by him and between two others in the close-pressed walkway, stooped, and very quickly grabbed her ankle and brought her to the ground. Renji heard the whuff of exhaled air as she slammed into the packed dirt. That's it, then, and he had no choice--man had to go and be rough about it, so he could do the same.

With a bit of physical effort and just a little spurt of the spiritual energy he'd been working on developing, Renji leapt into the air from behind his large target and used the man's head as a leap frog to jump in front of Rukia. His sudden appearance caused enough of a distraction that the man let go of her ankle, giving Renji a chance to grab her hand and drag her up off the ground.

"Come on, Rukia," He said, exasperated, ignoring her annoyed look as he dragged her away and did his best to get lost in the crowd. The man's shouts died away behind them.

It was quite a while later when she stopped≈which made him stop≈and said with a bit of annoyance, "You can let go of me now, you know."

Renji hadn't even noticed that he still held her hand. When she pointed it out, he dropped it almost immediately--but not without that odd, funny feeling of something flopping over in the pit of his stomach and the heat of a blush spreading across his face.

He turned his sudden discomfort into an annoyance not unlike her own. "Well, next time, maybe you should look at who you're stealing from before you just go for it like that! I'm not always gonna be there, ya know!"

-

After that, he started noticing all sorts of things.

For starters, he never really appreciated how tiny Rukia was. She suddenly seemed fragile, somehow, all curves and soft and light and not nearly as blocky and awkward as the boys. Her eyes were bigger and her hands were smaller and she had a particular set to her mouth that made it hard for him to look away sometimes.

Coincidences started happening more often. He noticed when she touched him. He went out of his way to avoid touching her. Her skin was too soft, he reasoned; it bothered him. It wasn't natural. Skin shouldn't be that soft.

It used to be that they could horse around like any other kids, and wrestle, and fight, and everything was okay--but now he felt distinctly uncomfortable when he pinned her (or when she pinned him, which happened more frequently.)

He felt even more indignant than usual when she could control her own reiatsu better than him. He felt more like he had to prove himself around her and he tried harder and he felt like she didn't even notice.

There were a lot of times when he ended up with Rukia, alone, because everybody else had gotten used to them working together that they didn't see anything strange about it.

"So," She would say, crossing her arms over her chest. Thank God for that.

"What?" He would snap irritably, mimicking her action.

"Nothing," She would sigh.

-

It's happened again, Renji thought, stuffing his hands under his arms in an attempt to keep some amount of feeling in his fingers. Rukia walked beside him, her shoulders hunched up and her fingers under her arms in the exact same way. "We should find everyone else," She muttered, looking up. The sky was low and grey, heavy with the snowstorm that was inevitably on its way. Renji should his head.

"They'll probably be back by now. We should just go that way."

"Do you think we can make it before the storm breaks?"

"I sure as hell hope so. I haven't got shoes. Have you got shoes? No. It would suck to be stuck in snow without shoes."

"Boy, you sure now how to cheer a girl up, don't ya?"

Renji lapsed into one of his awkward and uncomfortable silences at that, and they walked along for ten minutes. They had gone far away from the busy part of outer Rukongai to find a place to powwow, the whole group of them, and they'd finally found it in a field out by the river. They were kids, anyway, and kids had a certain impulse to play, so the afternoon had been spent running around playing games. It had ended when a group of older, bigger, and meaner thugs wandered up looking bored. And those guys, they had a different idea of 'playing', so the kids had split and Renji had been his normally chivalrous self and had dragged Rukia off with him and now look where it had gotten him.

"Aw, damn, Renji, we're too late."

"What?" He snapped out of the intense self-scrutiny of his inner motives long enough to notice that the snow had already started to fall and swirled around them in eddies. "Shit."

"Look," Rukia said; his gaze followed her pointed finger to a small shack several yards away. "It's getting thicker, Renji, we're going to have to find a place to bunker down until it's over with."

Well, crap. "Okay."

-

The shack itself wasn't a palace; a corner of the roof was crumbling away and exposed to the grey sky and a sizable pile of snow was forming underneath it. The door was crooked in its frame and the hinges squeaked ominously when they shoved it open. The whole house creaked, really, as the wind howled through cracks and crannies, and Renji didn't like the noises at all. But it did provide shelter from the wind, and there was a small fireplace on the opposite wall, safe and dry.

He went over to investigate the likelihood of a fire while Rukia rummaged around the shelves that lined the wall.

"Nothing. Bunch of empty jars and moldy stuff." She said, disappointed. Renji didn't turn around; he was preoccupied with the single, solid fact that he was stuck in an abandoned shed alone in a snow storm with the one girl in their entire group and it made him very, very uncomfortable for some grand and mysterious reason. Although, he noted, there was tinder in the fireplace that looked like it had been used recently, and some flint on top of the mantel, and a bit of dry wood and various flack in a pan next to the half-used wood. It would be a small fire, but it would be warm.

He heard the sharp click of a cupboard door being pulled open behind him and he turned around to find Rukia rummaging in one of the two cabinets.

"A blanket!" She said, triumphantly hoisting her moth-eaten trophy into the air. "A blanket and a pillow, too."

"I'm gonna start a fire," Renji said gruffly. He grabbed the flint and crouched down in front of the fireplace as if to prove his point. "Go ahead and get comfortable and what not. You hear that wind? It's gonna be a long night."

A very long night. Renji had never wanted to cry so much in his life. _What the hell is my problem?_

-

"What are you doing?"

"Keeping watch."

"Renji, it's the middle of a blizzard. No one is going to come out to the middle of nowhere and ransack our hovel."

"You--you never know!"

"Yes, I do. Stop being an idiot and come over here where you won't freeze."

Renji liked where he was by the door. It was freezing, and he couldn't feel his feet, and he was pretty sure if he didn't warm them soon that they'd fall off--but he felt like he'd rather face the damn storm than endure a night of excruciating awkwardness with Rukia, who was becoming more and more of a girl every moment he stayed in her company. She was nagging, for Pete's sake. He made a noncommittal noise and inched in her direction.

"Renji, seriously. I'm not going to be held accountable if you have to hobble around on stumps for the rest of your days. When the other kids call you hob-along Hector and throw things at you, I'm not going to do anything to stop them."

"God damnit, Rukia, Jesus, I'll come over, okay," He threw his arms in the air. "Hob-along Hector? Seriously?"

"You know they'd do it."

"I know. That's what is so ridiculous about the whole threat. How true it is." He felt like he was gliding as he strode over towards her. She was curled up in front of the small fire, the blanket thrown over her, holes in the fabric exposing an ankle here and an elbow there. Renji didn't know if he felt like he was gliding because his stomach was suddenly somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, or if it was because he couldn't actually feel his feet impacting the ground. Either way.

"Shove over," He said gruffly, flopping on the ground next to her. She lifted up the side of the blanket so he could slide under and moved so that her head only took up a corner of the pillow.

"You know," She said seriously, her eyes all big and girly. Damn girls. That's how she got everything, she was an evil and manipulative female. She just pulled those big eyes out and everybody gave her everything she wanted. Renji wanted to give her everything she wanted.

"What?" He snapped instead.

"They say that in blizzards you should stay close, to preserve body heat."

"W-what?" He had been concentrating on ignoring the eyes. His concentration was broken. He suddenly had no problem at all with the cold. Actually, it was hot--very, very hot. "That fire is a little big, isn't it," He said, voice going shrilly.

"I'm just saying. And your clothes are damp, because you were standing right under the hole in the roof. Not a very smart thing to do. But damp clothes suck body heat out. It's science. Really, Renji, you should learn these things."

He lay down on the ground with his back to her so that she couldn't see how red his face was. "What are you trying to say?"

"Off with the clothes! Come on! It's self-preservation!" He could almost hear her nose wrinkling. "Although, it is kind of gross."

"What's gross!"

Renji sat up quickly, pulling the blanket off of both of them, so he could turn around to glare. "If you want gross--"

"It's cold!" Rukia yelped, grasping for the blanket. She didn't have anything on except the bottoms that they all wore, dirty white cloth wrapped around her waist like a loincloth. "Stop staring!" She shrieked, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up to her chin.

Renji slapped his palms up to his eyes. "What the hell are--why--did--"

"My clothes were just as wet as yours are!"

After the shock passed, Renji burst into near-hysterical giggles. Her body was small and bony, not curvy the way he'd seen on older women. Completely un-threatening. Wiry. Not all silky softness and warmth like he'd expected. That put him at ease, at least; so long as he didn't look at her eyes, he could just go back to pretending that she was a boy. Not that that made this situation any less painful.

"And look, your lips are turning blue!" She said, back to haughty and in control. "I'm not lying. Take off your clothes and get under the damn blanket."

"If you ever tell anyone about this, I'll kill you," Renji muttered vehemently as he peeled off his own tattered clothes down to his bottoms. He tossed them towards the fire, where they landed with a wet PLOP just in front, and shivered in the cold. Rukia held up the side of the blanket again and he slid under, stoically keeping his back towards her.

"That's it, then. We just have to stay here until the storm calms down." Rukia said. He could feel her just inches from his back. He clutched his corner of the blanket and willed his mind to other things. He was just starting to relive his own fantasy of becoming a Captain of Seireitei when he felt her arms snake around his stomach and her body press close against his back. Skin on skin.

"I told you, we have to preserve body heat," She said. But all the bossiness was gone from her voice, now. It was barely above a whisper.

Renji gulped his indignant reply and basked in the warmth of her small body pressed against his, the heat of all the blood in his body rushing to his face, and the fact that he'd never really thought about her in terms of this before, only in terms of that unsettling feeling in his stomach. It was up to a full gallop, now. If his stomach hadn't been trapped inside his skin it would've been halfway to Hueco Mundo.

So he didn't say anything. He just lay there, wide awake, waiting to see if she would just fall asleep, if that was it then. It wasn't.

"Your hair's in my face," She whined, not three minutes later. "Why do you have such long hair. It's longer than mine, even. You're more of a girl than I am--"

Renji reached down and plucked her arms from his stomach so that he could roll over, and now they were front to front and her mouth was still open, halfway to forming another word. He shifted and let her arms drop so one was trapped under him and the other draped over his side. He sneered in her face.  
"Better?"

"Yeah," She squeaked out, looked at him for a moment, and then tucked close so that her head was under his chin and her legs tangled in his and her arms wound up around his back. "Yeah."

He gulped. He felt her breath on his collar bone and her hands on his back and he couldn't help but press his mouth to the top of her head, that little part where he could see the white of her scalp. He felt her muscles tighten.

_Oh God_, he thought, eyes squeezing shut. _Here it comes_.

He felt her head move from underneath his chin. He felt her hand move from his back to his side. Then he felt a soft, wet warmth on his cheek, and he peeked out from under one eyelid to see what it was, and--she was kissing him! Right there, not two inches from his mouth! And that's where all the soft and silkiness was, he thought wonderingly, it was on the outside all along, right there. She might be bony, but her face was all girl.

He closed his eyes again and moved his hand so that it rested on her neck. She started to pull away from her own kiss, but he didn't let her--instead, he moved his own head slightly, and their noses crushed together.

"Ow!" She said, irritated.

"Oh, shut up," Renji growled, and tilted his head so it pressed into the pillow just as she tilted her head so it lifted off the pillow. Their lips touched. Something in the back of his head, right behind his eyes, exploded. Something that had been resting there, building up strength, since a crisp autumn morning.

They stayed like that, lips pressed together, breath hissing out through their noses, until it got awkward. Her fingernails were digging into his side. Renji moved his hand up to tangle in her hair and did something, then, that he'd never really considered before. Sure, kissing and all, people did that--but he was bringing his tongue into the equation, and, well, that always seemed like it belonged right there in his own mouth, thank you, and not in anybody elses.

But it felt right. The tip of his tongue quested out from between his lips and touched hers, chapped from the cold but full and warm and inviting, and she let him in, and they did that for a while. She didn't taste like candy, he noted. She tasted like a full banquet after days of starvation.

She pulled away and Renji let his breath out in a huff. She pulled both her arms close to her body, tucked her head back under his chin and snuggled, and Renji ran his fingers up and down the knobs of her spine. They passed a few minutes in silence.

"If you ever tell anyone about this," She said, finally, her voice small amidst the howling of the gale outside. "I'll _kill_ you."

THE END


End file.
